Cdl hobby 250

[n8hutch]

Should I be looking at an RO with a recirculating pump rather than a pressure pump? I think that’s what the lapierre turbo’s use...

It is all up to you and your Budget, I bought a 600 Gph CDL last year with a 3 or maybe its 3.5 Hp pump, anyway with good sap it easily does 2 to 10% at probably closer to 500gph. It's an awesome rig, and to me it was a much better deal price wise.

[fred]

as I keep stressing the 250's are not the 600's or bigger. they are only designed to do 50%

[butler]

I’m definately not ready to go bigger than 250.. also want to make sure I will have enough sap each time to run it.. I’m assuming I will need 4-500 gals to start it up...can the cdl 250 be stored without a heated room?

[boondocker]

Yes it can be stored in a unheated room but needs to be 100% drained. I am not taking any chances with mine, I am building a shelf on the wall about 4' to 5' off the floor and enclosing it with a small heater inside just to be sure nothing freezes.

[S.S.S]

them 250gph cdl rigs are way over priced in my book!

[VT_K9]

image.jpgimage.jpgWe have a CDL 250 RO. We are upgrading to a 600 gph CDL unit this year. The 250 was a great unit and concentrated quite a bit of sap and saved a lot of wood. They say drain it and you don't need to keep it in a heated room. Early in the ownership we found this to be true. The last two years were different...keep a heat lamp on it. Yes... a simple heat lamp it made all the difference for us and is becoming the recommendation.

Ours was mounted on top of a CDL 160 gallon tank. This sat next to a CDL 260 gallon tank for three years and then a 800 gallon tank last year. We pumped from the 260 (or 800) to the 160 removing half the water. The next pass was pumping from the 160 to a 100 gallon feed tank. Sometimes we recirculated the concentrate to get it close to 4% if it did not make it there on the first pass.

All in all we could fire up the RO at about 6:45am, the 2x6 at about 8:30 am. Then boil and RO until we finished approximately 3:00pm. This was about a 700 gallon run and resulted in about 13 gallons of syrup and sweet in the pan.

You made a good choice and will have great results...keep a heat lamp focused in the middle of the unit when temps drop.

Mike

[butler]

Thanks so much for all the great info...it has given me the confidence to purchase a nice used one I found